Interesting story.
The problem would seem to be that while there exist short-distance wired solutions to your problem (i.e. when both your "office desk area" and "gaming play area" were within acceptable distance from the PC to allow a genuine "native" wired solution with long USB and DVI cables and hubs), there is no long-distance (i.e. 30M or more) wired solution that you know of that resolves everything without logistical and cosmetic problems.
And any potential wireless solution you've found comes along with limitations on DVI supported resolution that are unacceptable. And you don't want to have long wires running around inside your house (for example to run USB over ethernet), but you also don't want to invest in running wall-housed or ceiling-housed or outside-run cables of any kind.
Now I understand you don't want to spend a fortune on a second high-spec machine for your home office when you really could get along just fine with your existing single machine if only you could get to it from the home office peripherals.
Interesting objectives. You're certainly going to need some new hardware, no matter what. But there are some very useful "raw materials" you might consider choosing from.
First, you should probably resolve getting ethernet capability (either wired or wireless or both) to your home office, as the first order of business. This would open up lots of additional options now and down the road, as ethernet connectivity (to your router/modem, and then out to the Internet) in that room allows pretty much open-ended generic connectivity between all of the ethernet-enabled devices in your home. This includes not only computers, but also phones, TV's, game/disc players, etc. Can't ever hurt to have ethernet capability in a room.
If you haven't pre-wired ethernet cables to a room, and you don't want to do it now, you can still bring wired ethernet capability to that room using the right "gizmo".
(1) If you have an old 75ohm cable coax screw-on wall connector in that room (as many older places were frequently "wired for coax cable", which is the modern version of running a 300ohm roof TV antenna cable) where the other end of the coax is in the vicinity of the router, you can get a pair of "
ethernet over coax" gizmos (which also serve as 2x100 10/100 switches, to instantly support up to two wired ethernet-enabled devices) to bring 10/100 wired ethernet connectivity to that room across the run of coax. This is good for up to 1000 feet.
(2) Since virtually all rooms have 120V A/C power sockets on the walls, you can also get a pair of "
ethernet over powerline" gizmos (from lots of different vendors) that make use of the copper wiring in your walls that brings electricity to each room. Inevitably there will be a nearby power socket near the router and a nearby power socket in your home office room which can be used for the job. These devices are a bit more susceptible to external factors like maybe whether the copper wiring runs through circuit breakers or is a "straight run" between the pair of wall sockets being used. Also, these devices are limited to 10/100 speeds and typically only have a single ethernet port so they can connect to only a single wired ethernet device. You'll have to add an ethernet switch to the home office end if you want to support more than one wired ethernet connection for multiple devices you'd like to get onto the network.
(3) If you want to provide wireless connectivity to the remote location where the primary router's wireless signal just doesn't make it acceptably, you can add "
wireless range extenders" scattered around the house. These are simply "WiFi signal boosters" for the WiFi network of the primary wireless router.
(4) Or, you can add secondary "
wireless access points (WAP)" (which need to have a wired ethernet connection to the primary router, either through a true ethernet cable or through one of the two above "gizmo arrangements" I described above) to provide secondary and independent wireless networks throughout your house. These almost always also include built-in 4x100Mb switch technology, and since one of those ports is already in use (wired-connected to the router) the other three ports are available for other wired device connections in the vicinity of the WAP. All wired or wireless devices connected through the WAP (and then passed on to the primary router through the wired connection) are managed by the primary router, and appear to be "wired" rather than "wireless" (even if they are wirelessly connected to the WAP) in the router's list of "attached devices".
So, once you have provided ethernet connectivity from the home office to the router (and by implication, to the modem and thus also to the Internet), you now can consider a relatively inexpensive laptop (as opposed to a high-spec expensive desktop machine) as your "remote workstation" in the home office. You don't need to use it as your real "office computer" unless you want to, but you can now use it for "remote desktop" connection to your primary machine through either TeamViewer or RealVNC or similar tools.
Shopping wisely for a laptop that provides the graphics adapter resolution which would be acceptable for you, you can plug your existing external monitor as well as your external mouse and keyboard to the laptop. Or, you can invest in a docking station to make the interconnects, but surely the laptop itself should be able to be connected to directly.
So now you have your existing home office monitor, keyboard, and mouse, connected to the laptop which is connected through ethernet to your router (and by implication also to your other high-spec PC also on the LAN). Remote peripherals like printers, scanners, etc., can be network connected as well, either locally supported via USB to and hosted by whichever computer is nearest and has available USB ports, or simply just added to the network via their wired/wireless ethernet connectivity ports... now that you have wired/wireless ethernet capability in the home office room (without digging up your floors and walls, but by using an appropriate pair of "gizmos" to deliver that ethernet connectivity).
You can use the "remote desktop" software and your home office monitor/keyboard/mouse and open a full-screen "window" on the office screen, which is actually the true Windows desktop from your high-spec machine. You will be simply using the office as a remote location with suitable human interface peripherals, for working on the high-spec machine. The laptop is simply the hardware tool which allows the TeamViewer/VNC software needed to run, as well as using the gizmo-provided ethernet connectivity to get to the high-spec machine. So the laptop really doesn't need to do much (unless you decide you want to), other than provide the level of USB and graphics adapter capability you need for the devices which will plug into it.
I didn't say this would be free. But it is definitely possible, given purchase of the right new equipment. And it would avoid running new cables of any kind between the home office room and the primary router and high-spec PC.
Your existing PC would still be your one real work machine "server". The laptop is just a "client interface" to the "server" to facilitate a full-screen remote desktop image of the "server".
Is this reasonable?
